Jan 7 In response to Japan's military expansion in Manchuria, the US Secretary of State declares the Stimson Doctrine: the non-recognition of territorial changes executed by force.
Jan 8 The principle leader of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, forbids church remarriage of a divorced person.
Jan 28 Japan lands troops at Shanghai on January 28 in response to expressions of hostility by Chinese citizens there. They challenge a Chinese army unit in the vicinity. And a Japanese aircraft carrier shells Chinese targets in support of its troops. Fighting extends into February.
Jan 1-31 Stalin's Five-Year Plan ends this year. The Soviet government is rationing food in cities and has been requisitioning food for export to pay for the industrialization. Peasants hostile to the collectivization program have been burning their crops, destroying their tools and their livestock. Famine exists. It will be estimated that during this year a million peasants die.
Feb 2 A general disarmament convention begins in Geneva. It will last into 1934 and become bogged down over the difference between offensive and defensive weapons.
Feb 2 The Reconstruction Finance Corporation, chartered by the Hoover administration, begins its operation. It is to give $2 billion in aid to state and local governments and make loans to banks, railroads, farm mortgage associations, and other businesses, but it fails to distribute much of its funds.
Feb 25 Adolf Hitler obtains German citizenship by naturalization, opening the opportunity for him to run in the 1932 election for Reichspräsident.
Mar 2 A fascist movement, dedicated to outlawing Communists, takes over the town of Mantsala, not far from Helsinki. The coup fails. The fascists will call for and receive protection of rights guaranteed them by Finland's constitution, which they hope to destroy.
Mar 2 Chinese forces withdraw from the Shanghai area.
Mar 7 In Dearborn, Michigan, four people are killed when police fire upon 3,000 unemployed autoworkers marching outside the Ford automobile factory.
Mar-Apr In an interview with a German journalist, Emil Ludwig, Mussolini says, "Yes" [a dictator can be loved] "provided that the masses fear him at the same time. The crowd loves strong men. The crowd is like a woman. " According to Ludwig he later adds: "For me the masses are nothing but a herd of sheep, so long as they are unorganized. I am nowise antagonistic to them. All that I deny is that they are capable of ruling themselves. "
Apr 10 Hindenburg wins re-election as Germany's president with the support of moderates who vote for him in an effort to defeat Hitler.
May 15 Japanese troops leave Shanghai. Chiang Kai-shek will now begin the first phase of his fourth "Communist suppression" expedition near the northern border of Hunan Province in the south.
May 15 In Japan, naval officers, army cades and right-wing civilians attempt to overthrow the government. They assassinate Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi. They also wanted to kill his guest, Charlie Chaplin, but they failed. During their trial they will proclaim their loyalty to the Emperor, arouse patriotic sympathies and receive light sentences.
May 29 The first of approximately 15,000 unemployed veterans arrive in Washington, D.C. demanding full payment of the bonus promised them for serving in the World War.
Jun 1 German chancellor Heinrich Brüning resigns. President Hindenburg asks fellow monarchist Franz von Papen to form a new government. Papen will have little support in parliament or from the public. A crisis in who is to be chancellor is in the making.
Jun 4 Unhappiness with the economy inspires Chile's Air Force, led by Commodore Grove, to overthrow a democratically elected government. A Socialist Republic is proclaimed. Executive power is vested in a junta that includes representation from the other military services.
Jun 6 Congress and the Hoover administration create the nation's first gas tax.
Jun 15 The Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay begins over a largely uninhabited region, the Gran Chaco, that was never clearly a part of either country but is now believed to have oil. The war will last three years.
Jul 6 Antonio de Oliveira Salazar becomes prime minister of Portugal. He is a defender of the Catholic Chuch and has the backing of monarchists. He tends toward authoritarianism and will be in power for the next 36 years.
Jul 8 The Dow Jones Industrial Average bounces off its lowest level: 41.22.
Jul 17 In Altona, a communist suburb of Hamburg, 6,000 Nazis march. A Communist on a rooftop fires into the Nazis, and Nazis shoot back. Eighteen are killed. Street fighting follows in Berlin, Cologne and Munich.
Jul 28 The veterans in Washington, now known as the Bonus Army, have been camping in a park near the capital. Attorney General Mitchell orders the Washington police to evacuate them. The veterans resist and the police fire upon them, killing two. President Hoover then orders the army to effect the evacuation.
Jul 31 This July, Stalin was describing talk of starvation as an excuse for laziness by the peasants who didn't want to work and laziness by those who didn't want too discipline them. He was blaming the famine not on his own policy but on betrayal by the Ukrainian communist party, a matter of implementation rather his collectivization as a concept. Stalin saw a plot by Ukrainian party members directed against him personally, and he expressed fear that, "we could lose the Ukraine." (Bloodlands, by Timothy Snyder, p 37)
Sepr 23 The Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd is renamed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Oct 3 Iraq leaves behind rule by Britain, under a League of Nations mandate, and becomes nominally independent and a League member. Its chief of state is King Faisal, a British creation and looked upon by many in Iraq as a foreigner. Faisal will continue to avoid defying the British.
Oct 25 Mussolini promises to remain as Italy's dictator for 30 years.
Nov 7 The space comic strip, Buck Rogers, begun in 1929, graduates to radio.
Nov 8 In the US presidential election, the Democrat, New York's governor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, receives 57.4 percent of the vote and defeats the incumbent, Herbert Hoover. Hoover wins Maine and Pennsylvania. Socialist Norman Thomas receives 2.2 percent and 8.5 votes for every 1 vote for William Z. Foster, Communist Party candidate. The Democrats become the majority party in Congress: 60-35 in the Senate, 310-113 in the House. The Republicans will not have their comeback until 1952.
Nov 21 German president Hindenburg begins negotiations with Adolf Hitler about the formation of a new government.
Dec 21 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are together for the first time in their movie "Flying Down to Rio."
Dec 31 Attacks by Chinese guerrilla forces against the Japanese in various areas of Manchuria have subsided. Japan's is now focusing on bringing the province of Jehol, just north of the Great Wall, under its control.
Copyright © 1998-2018 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.